The truck rumbled steadily across the cracked asphalt, its thick wheels crushing the blackened gravel beneath. Smoke coiled up from jagged breaks in the road, like the very ground was exhaling heat.
The ruins of once-proud buildings lood in the distance, jagged silhouettes of steel and concrete half-eaten by ti, fire, and rot.
It looked like midday, but ti had been unreliable since the world fell.
The sky was a grayish-yellow hue, sunlike but wrong, like a faded photograph of sumr overexposed by radiation.
From the truck, everyone could see the mirage-like shimr of heat rising outside, warping the horizon into a dance of fla.
Inside, the hum of the truck’s engine mixed with the quiet breathing of those aboard. The cool air drifting from makeshift vents was a sharp contrast to the inferno outside.
Leo, tucked securely in Winter’s lap, had finally relaxed after an hour of anxious fidgeting. His tiny hand clung to Winter’s jacket, eyes wide as they took in the hellish world outside.
But now, sothing shifted in him. His small body twisted, arms reaching up. Winter blinked and looked down.
Zara was already watching from beside them in the narrow space. Winter passed the boy gently, and Leo clambered over with little grunts, burying himself into his mother’s arms.
She cradled him close, her expression relaxed as she pressed her lips to the top of his head.
"Don’t want to hang out with anymore?" Winter murmured, feigning a pout as he reached for the child.
Leo’s brows furrowed as he looked from zara to winter and back.
Zara smacked Winter’s arm lightly. "It’s my turn to get hugs from Leo! He shouldn’t be too greedy, right baby?" she asked Leo.
"Hmm! Mommy says you get tummy ouchies if you greedy!" Leo lectured Winter with a serious face.
Zara and Winter tried not to laugh at the look on his face.
"Ok, ok," Winter raised his hands. "I’ll wait again."
As Leo settled comfortably against Zara’s chest, his head tucked under her chin, Winter leaned in closer, voice low and smooth.
"Well," he murmured near her ear, eyes glinting with mischief, "since I can’t cuddle with Leo... maybe I could try cuddling with his mom instead? Right here? Real casual. No one would even notice."
Zara’s eyes widened slightly, color rising in her cheeks. She elbowed him gently, trying to keep her voice down. "Winter," she whispered back, warningly. "Leo is right here. And so is everyone else!"
He gave a slow, teasing grin. "So I have to wait for you too? This family’s rough on a guy."
Zara shot him a look, her face flushing deeper. "Behave."
He was about to reply when he glanced forward—and caught sight of Miles turning slightly in his seat, trying very poorly to hide a knowing smirk. Marcus, seated next to him, gave Winter a thumbs-up paired with the kind of grin that made it clear he’d heard everything.
Winter narrowed his eyes and shot both of them a casual middle finger.
They both snorted into their hands, shaking with silent laughter.
With a dramatic sigh, Winter settled back. "Fine. No cuddling. I’ll just die lonely and cold."
A mont passed.
Then winter blinked as he felt somthing heavy lean against his shoulder. He turned to see Zara had placed her head there. He grinned down at her and shifted to pull an arm around her.
Zara rolled her eyes but smiled.
The truck rolled on, tires crunching over broken asphalt and silence stretching between the group.
The dry heat beyond the windows shimred and danced over distant ruins, the midday light sickly and distorted under a sky that had long since stopped obeying nature’s rules.
Then—
"Why aren’t we lting in here?" Sam suddenly broke the silence, brow furrowed as he watched the shimring heat through the slit window. "It looks like the road’s on fire."
Mike, hands on the steering wheel, smirked faintly. "Because this baby is my masterpiece," he said with a mock flourish.
"Co again?" Marcus arched an eyebrow, wiping sweat from his brow despite the cool air.
"Back in the early days—like real early, right after shit went sideways—there were supply depots, stores, garages, and tech places left wide open. I had ti, and I had the need," Mike explained, shrugging.
"I ripped apart a dozen different rigs, solar setups, insulation panels. Reinforced the truck’s shell, sealed it tight. There’s two layers of thermo-padded insulation between us and the sun out there. Plus, I rigged the air system with a combination of solar and salvaged coolant. It doesn’t just work, it thrives under this kind of heat."
Naomi whistled. "You built all that before your twentieth birthday?"
Mike shrugged, blushing but grinning. "Had a lot of free ti. And, well, I figured I’d be driving forever."
"Mad genius," Ima murmured, clearly impressed.
"You might’ve saved our lives with this thing," Winter said, nodding toward him.
"Alright, alright, don’t hype up too much," Mike muttered, trying to look modest. The red creeping up his ears betrayed him. "Let’s just say I didn’t plan for this many passengers, but I guess it worked out."
There was a mont of shared silence, and for once, it wasn’t tense. The sound of the wheels grinding over cracked road, the occasional soft baby sigh from Leo, and the hum of the solar system created a cocoon of calm amid the chaos outside.
"Well," Marcus leaned back, eyes fixed on the glowing ruins in the distance, "do we still need to hit that dical outpost?"
Winter looked at Zara. She nodded slightly.
"We’ve got enough ds for now," Winter said. "Leo’s spot had a better stash than we hoped, and Richard’s stabilizing. He was awake for a bit earlier. Responsive."
"So what now?" Naomi asked, brushing hair from Aren’s face.
"Now we look for sowhere quiet. Far from the cities, out of sight. Sowhere we can regroup. Figure out our next step," Winter said.
"But," Ima said slowly, "we should still scavenge. Even if Leo’s place is stocked... it’s not like he’s got a duplicator in there. Supplies run out. Either they run out... or we do."
Her words left a silence hanging in the air, heavier than before. Even Leo looked up from his mother’s chest as if he sensed the shift.
"Then we don’t run out," a voice said quietly from the back.
Everyone turned. Zara sat upright now, eyes distant, like she was seeing through ti instead of space.
"We don’t run out," she repeated. "Because we find a way to end this nightmare first."
No one spoke.
Finally, Miles asked, "End it? You an... this whole thing?"
Zara nodded. "Before the fall, I was already researching. And at the City H base, I got involved in the Research division. Classified work, top tier."
"You never said you were stationed there at City H," Mike muttered.
"We haven’t have much ti for chit chat after the escape, right? The apocalypse... it didn’t start with a bomb or virus. It started with that orb in the sky."
Everyone turned their gaze to the slanted window, where, even in daylight, the orb hung in the sky like a cancerous moon. Still. Watching. Growing.
"It’s not a weapon," Zara said. "At least, not only that. It’s sentient. We were starting to prove that when the base was attacked."
"That’s what caused all this?" Naomi asked, whisper-quiet. "Not humans? Not... governnts?"
Zara shook her head. "Zombies, mist, the mutations—it all traces back to the orb. And the mist creatures."
Marcus straightened. "Wait. You an they’re different creatures? In the mist?"
"Yes," Zara said. "Most aren’t like us. Think... feral. But so—so are aware. They speak. Think. They want."
Marcus rubbed his face. "Hell. Hell, no."
"I ca in contact with one during the breach," Zara said, voice flat. "It spoke to . And it wanted... my lungs."
Silence.
Then a collective sound of horror. A ripple of movent as everyone instinctively leaned back, as if that would put distance between them and what they just heard.
"Jesus Christ," Miles breathed.
"Wait, it spoke to you?" Naomi asked.
Zara nodded slowly. "Not in words. In... intentions. Like it was whispering directly into my thoughts. It was intelligent. It knew what human organs did. It didn’t want to just kill. It wanted to use ."
"That’s ssed up," Mike said, visibly shaken. "That’s not just so monster. That’s sothing... planning."
Winter’s voice cut through the tension. "We concluded that the mist creatures breathe differently. They need the mist because they can’t process oxygen like we do. That’s why humans who breathe it die. Or co back... changed."
"Zombies," Miles muttered. "So that explains what the mist does. Converts. Or kills."
Marcus snorted, dry and bitter. "So aliens are real. I knew it. I knew I should’ve made that tinfoil hat when I had the chance."
No one laughed. Not even a smile.
Ima’s brow furrowed. "Aliens? But... are we sure? Could be sothing from this world. So mutation."
"Except," Winter said, "I’ve seen what they leave behind. Tracks. Residue. I was on military patrol outside the base. We weren’t just fighting outbreaks—we were tracking them. They weren’t random. They moved with so goal in mind. They knew exactly what to hit. Power grids. Our own soldiers to lure us out."
"That sounds like strategy," Naomi murmured.
"Exactly," Zara said. "That orb isn’t a freak accident or cosmic curse. It’s a deliberate tool. A launchpad. A hive. A leader. We just don’t know which."
"And even if we did," Mike said slowly, "how the hell do you fight sothing floating in the sky? We can’t even get planes up anymore."
Miles leaned forward. "What if we could? I an... maybe there’s sothing left in one of the military bases. Jets. Missiles. Anything to blast that thing to bits."
Zara shook her head. "It’s not just physical. The readings we got from it... they were wrong. Like it was both here and sowhere else. Firing on it might not even register."
"Then what?" Naomi asked. "How do we stop it?"
"I don’t know yet," Zara said. "But I was close. We were close. That’s why they hit City H first."
"They ca to stop you," Ima said.
"To silence us," Zara confird. "And they almost did."
The truck rolled to a stop at the top of a low ridge. Everyone turned to look out.
The land stretched before them like a graveyard of giants—fallen skyscrapers, lted cars, ash-slicked streets. Two suns, bright and burning in their orbits, dipped low on the horizon, casting long shadows like fingers reaching across a corpse.
The light was orange-red, but dimr now. Dimming more.
"Night’s coming," Mike said quietly.
"Or what passes for it," Winter added.
No one moved. No one spoke. There were too many thoughts. Too many truths revealed all at once. Mist creatures. Intelligent invaders. Orbs in the sky with unknowable power. They weren’t just running anymore.
They were on a path to sothing bigger.
And if they failed?
Then they’d all be cooked. One way or another.
The truck sat still, bathed in red, as the false sun bled into the jagged skyline.
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